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What I twittered today…

• 17:17 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/dyq9op #
• 19:48 Look at me! I’m about to see Elbow live! Who wants to touch me? #

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What I twittered today…

• 17:15 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/chvlte #
• 08:42 Fresh Yoghurt: David Miliband and Jaqui Smith: something to hide, something to fear tinyurl.com/bf35o2 #

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What I twittered today…

• 17:16 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/bfg2qm #
• 08:10 Hello Picklers! twitter.com/pickledpolitics #
• 10:18 Roast beef and horseradish sandwich and fondant fancies for breakfast #fucklent #
• 10:24 Are you watching, Trevor Phillips? news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7913073.stm #
• 10:43 According to Simon Hoggart, Fred Goodwin costs ‘1p per person per year’. Let’s all give each other a penny and be rich. WHO’S WITH ME? #
• 10:47 Your groove for today… tinyurl.com/d6pkrp #
• 10:56 Fresh Yoghurt: Donald Rumsfeld: American psycho tinyurl.com/cmuk35 #
• 11:11 Even groovier… tinyurl.com/d6ujvp #
• 12:07 Blimey, the attention to detail in Watchmen is incredible: bit.ly/Rmjp3 #
• 14:09 Soon on the BBC: Chicken Yoghurt Day. A whole day’s schedule is given over to promoting a blog only slightly more pisspoor than U2’s new LP. #
• 14:18 There’s a seagull outside my window making the exact same noise as that bit in Britney Spear’s Toxic. #
• 14:20 WARPORN! bit.ly/1PqeI Ooooh God, I think I’m gonna… oh… uhhhh… deploy…. #
• 14:23 You know, I really like Frank Zappa but GOD I wish he’d give the xylophone a rest now and again. #
• 14:51 Nuclear Reaction: Nuclear News: 15,000 demonstrated against nuclear power in Germany with 52 ki.. tinyurl.com/ap37on #
• 14:59 Because I love you all… tinyurl.com/apgxx9 #
• 15:50 Nuclear Reaction: Olkiluto fallout: more numbers tinyurl.com/crqwed #
• 15:50 Nuclear Reaction: MOX to Japan: the largest shipment of plutonium in history tinyurl.com/az787a #

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What I twittered today…

• 18:18 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/ap8edm #
• 19:03 Favourite Nintendo DS games, anyone? #
• 10:02 a) Do you think there might a parallel universe somewhere where Nicky Campbell doesn’t exist? b) How do I get there? #
• 10:41 I hereby declare that if Iain Dale wins the Orwell Prize for blogging I’m packing it in.# #
• 10:51 Nuclear Reaction: Live Q&A: George Monbiot on nuclear power tinyurl.com/c6ckbv #
• 10:51 Fresh Yoghurt: Bill Hicks: gone these fifteen years tinyurl.com/b4xg5o #
• 11:10 Fresh Yoghurt: Guantanamo Bay: the few bad apples scrape the bottom of the barrel tinyurl.com/bupfzp #
• 11:43 What a lovely long-lens photo of a shattered David and Samantha Cameron on the Daily Mail today. There goes the guardian of our morals. #
• 11:43 Fresh Yoghurt: At last: blog to bog technology comes of age tinyurl.com/bonnwb #
• 11:48 Bakewell slices for breakfast. #fucklent #
• 12:08 Your groove for today… tinyurl.com/de52xq #
• 12:24 Thank Christ the Obamas have got a dog at last. It was starting to weigh on my mind. bit.ly/ihahp #
• 12:26 ‘Ted Kennedy should also be pleased with the selection. He owns two Portuguese water dogs, and lobbied hard for the breed.’ Jesus Wept. #
• 12:37 bit.ly/lN4Xx If only corporate greed had crossed John Prescott’s mind when, oh I don’t know, HE WAS THE UK’S DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER. #
• 13:19 How the hell did I end up on an email list for the Party of European Socialists? #
• 13:56 Christ, another nascent New Labour drone bit.ly/pcLmX Do they grow these guys in a lab? #
• 14:08 It turns out it was me invented Twitter ages ago – bit.ly/lsjyj – and @hackneye said it was a bad idea. In your face, Strachan. #
• 15:16 Fresh Yoghurt: Iraq: still breaking eggs to make that freedom omelette tinyurl.com/bf6uq4 #
• 15:43 Fresh Yoghurt: David Davis breaks cover tinyurl.com/d6p3hs #
• 16:16 Nuclear Reaction: Nuclear News: Light houses from nuclear to solar energy tinyurl.com/bv43ml #
• 16:16 Nuclear Reaction: OL3 dents Areva profits tinyurl.com/d9bxm5 #

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What I twittered today…

• 17:19 Fresh Yoghurt: Government and legitimate expectations tinyurl.com/cbc3qs #
• 17:20 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/dmjxqc #
• 18:22 Oh, God. I’m going to have to go and see this, aren’t I? tinyurl.com/b9u4nf #
• 18:33 The latest drek from Labourlist: ‘Melanie Phillips could have a point’. That’s *Labour*list. #
• 18:37 I see there’s no mention on Labourlist of Jack Straw’s brave veto. #
• 08:31 The Stephen Fry Ubiquity: He’s about to host ISIHAC. Has he had himself cloned? For the sake of us all, Stephen, enough now. #
• 10:26 Jesus – bit.ly/qdbyY – Is it me or are aircraft dropping out of the air with terrifying regularity right now? #
• 10:35 Fuck’s sake. Can anyone realign Iain Dale’s moral compass for him: twitter.com/iaindale/statuses/1248666729 #
• 11:13 Fresh Yoghurt: Jack Straw’s apocalypse of interest tinyurl.com/ddyjht #
• 12:28 Dear David Miliband, can we extraordinarily render Max Hastings please? bit.ly/UNxTU #
• 13:58 Eat twelve battenbergs every day #fucklent #
• 14:47 Your groove for today… tinyurl.com/l35p8 #
• 14:52 They should have mailed it to the Marx Brothers: tinyurl.com/b88mcv #
• 15:15 Nuclear Reaction: Nuclear News: U.S. Energy Department Cannot Account for Nuclear Materials at .. tinyurl.com/d8t9t4 #
• 16:18 Nuclear Reaction: Romania and Bulgaria in illegal nuclear state aid accusations tinyurl.com/cz86xg #
• 16:30 14 out of 15! Beat that fellow Hicks obsessives… tinyurl.com/bq7dpa #

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What I twittered today…

• 17:16 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/brrftf #
• 10:20 Fresh Yoghurt: Post Office privatisation: lets go round again tinyurl.com/c6c37k #
• 11:11 Anybody else having a psychotic episode because Gmail is down? #
• 11:14 Fresh Yoghurt: Anybody seen David Davis? tinyurl.com/ak8mez #
• 11:25 Wow. Aaronovitch is a disgrace this morning… tinyurl.com/arngyf #
• 11:49 Il Capo di tutti capi: ‘Hey, don’t mess with the big guy, capisch you goombah? Now geddoutahere. Hey, fuggedaboutit!’ bit.ly/gR7CY #
• 12:11 Your groove for today… tinyurl.com/5qsflf #
• 12:52 …is currently fucking incandescent. #
• 13:02 Ah, Mars – The Bringer Of War. Just what I needed. #
• 13:14 34 kids currently in Yarl’s Wood. Yay, us! bit.ly/1ayXVZ #
• 13:21 75 kids tasered between January and August last year. Yay, us! bit.ly/J4hMl #
• 14:17 Nuclear Reaction: Nuclear News: Door still open for Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump site tinyurl.com/b42ltp #
• 14:17 Nuclear Reaction: No to Nuclear Power 101: Introduction tinyurl.com/bgxzpm #
• 15:57 What a surprise: tinyurl.com/cvcle2 #
• 16:11 Jesus, Jack Straw can twist better than Chubby Checker. #
• 16:30 Foreign Secretary who took the country to war now vetoes release of evidence when Justice Secretary. Sweet. #
• 16:31 What do they call those countries who like the bendy yellow fruit and don’t have monarchy? #
• 16:44 If those cabinet minutes vindicated Straw or meant he wouldn’t be out on his arse, he’d have released them. #

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What I twittered today…

• 17:20 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/d9p5og #
• 09:01 No Oscar for Jason Statham? FIX! #
• 09:50 Fresh Yoghurt: Links and stuff from between February 17th and February 23rd tinyurl.com/dbm4ax #
• 10:43 He has a list of physical ailments that cover two sheets of A4 paper. #
• 10:45 ‘What Binyam has been through should have been left behind in the Middle Ages.’ #
• 14:13 Bleurgh. Prince Charles’ beer is cack. #
• 14:27 Your groove for the day… tinyurl.com/c6anw9 #
• 14:49 Nuclear Reaction: Nuclear News: Iran to begin operation of 1st nuclear power plant tinyurl.com/bkmfow #
• 14:49 Nuclear Reaction: A nuclear Iraq? tinyurl.com/dltxk9 #

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What I twittered today…

• 17:13 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/bq6p3l #
• 10:10 Fresh Yoghurt: At least we didn’t cut his head off with a machete tinyurl.com/dj7xyk #
• 11:39 Off to London for a The Sharpener reunion. It’s morphed nicely from a blog into a genteel drinking club. #

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What I twittered today…

• 18:43 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/af34eu #

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What I twittered today…

• 18:48 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/bth35b #
• 10:17 Blogging/tweeting may be light today. I have zombies to shoot… #
• 11:33 I think I’m having one of my semi-regular ‘couldn’t give a shit’ weeks. #
• 11:50 Hello! www.randomhouse.com/crown/recordedattacks/ #
• 12:22 Goodnight and good luck everybody: tinyurl.com/ce3urm #
• 12:25 Go Lenny! Colour me stunned… news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7898827.stm #
• 13:18 RT @hackneye in the Telegraph on "Travel meets Twitter", tinyurl.com/bt2gnr then tinyurl.com/d3on67 then bit.ly/19eePz #
• 14:48 Nuclear Reaction: Nuclear News: IAEA finds graphite, more uranium at Syria site tinyurl.com/cc5kah #
• 14:48 Nuclear Reaction: Energy generation: small is beautiful tinyurl.com/bxvnbx #

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What I twittered today…

• 18:12 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/dh9muh #
• 08:58 I’m 38 I’m not old I’m 38 I’m not old I’m 38 I’m not old I’m 38 I’m not old I’m 38 I’m not old I’m 38 I’m not old I’m 38 I’m not old #
• 09:17 Can I just say that if you get the chance to see Mark Watson live you should leap at it. One of the best live comedy gigs I’ve ever been to. #
• 15:45 Nuclear Reaction: Nuclear News: Iran refusing to co-operate with nuclear inspectors, says UN tinyurl.com/d3xy3o #
• 15:45 Nuclear Reaction: The mysterious French firm tinyurl.com/cgz3p2 #

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What I twittered today…

• 18:13 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/cvhhyu #
• 20:03 I love it when complete nomarks protect their twitter accounts. Get over yourselves, eejits. #
• 22:19 How much cheese on toast constitutes a fatal dose? #
• 09:21 Your groove for today – tinyurl.com/59ja2v – Have I started repeating these yet? #
• 09:26 You have got to see this – tinyurl.com/apft5o – Greenpeace investigate a Sellafield nuclear waste dump in 1994… #
• 10:05 It’s ironic really that if you want to knock one out this morning, the Daily Mail website is the place to be. It’s more like Nuts every day. #
• 12:48 Nuclear Reaction: Nuclear News: Report: Israel waging covert war against Iranian nuclear program tinyurl.com/alyoaa #
• 12:48 Nuclear Reaction: Nuclear waste company says, "Whoops, some of our files are missing" tinyurl.com/djab2l #
• 14:34 If I was Gordon Brown I’d buy a brace of about-to-go-tonto chimps and release them at random. You’d soon forget about being skint then. #
• 15:19 Everyone, @christianvoice is twittering. Please form an orderly queue. #
• 15:36 Where can I find an instrumental version of U2’s new single. Bono trashes it. As usual. #
• 15:38 What should I spend my birthday money on? #
• 16:16 I gotta get me some of this… www.sega.com/hodoverkill/ #

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What I twittered today…

• 18:16 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/d94g3v #
• 18:42 Fresh Yoghurt: Blair’s ‘exceptional leadership’: final proof that there is no God tinyurl.com/b3b8ya #
• 19:45 Fresh Yoghurt: Standing on the shoulders of the compliant tinyurl.com/d3xubj #
• 21:08 Anybody else watch Despatches tonight? Anybody else resigned to the fact that this country is in the toilet? #
• 22:00 COMPROMISING FOREIGN SECRETARY, 42, WLTM companion to have razor waved at their junk in the name of national security. No time wasters. #
• 08:12 Guido Fawkes ‘is not homophobic as far as I know’ says Alex Hilton tinyurl.com/djhjlj. So it’s just a front to attract readers then? #
• 08:36 GO FREEDOM! GO FREEDOM! GO FREEDOM! tinyurl.com/adebee Dontcha just love being the good guys? #
• 08:37 Anyway enough torture and boring human rights abuses. What’s Derek Draper up to this morning, bloggers? #
• 08:55 Your groove for today: tinyurl.com/ddsemz #
• 09:44 Fresh Yoghurt: Blair War Crimes Foundation tinyurl.com/ddl8nu #
• 11:49 Fresh Yoghurt: Links and stuff from between February 14th and February 17th tinyurl.com/cl9gjv #
• 12:13 Fresh Yoghurt: It could be you tinyurl.com/dxqek3 #
• 12:47 Nuclear Reaction: Nuclear News: 10-year-old Sellafield plant may be closed tinyurl.com/d8xc74 #
• 13:13 Nuclear Reaction: The British nuclear industry sinks to new depths tinyurl.com/c5qyxx #
• 14:34 Mr Tessa Jowell is going to Italian chokey for four and half years… #
• 16:36 RT @greenpeaceuk: sellafield company admits it doesn’t know what’s in waste dump, but we had a look 15 years ago. tinyurl.com/dmnjq5 #
• 16:52 A press release arrives asking me to check out the government’s new anti-drugs video. Boy, did they pick the wrong bloke. #

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Shoot me. Just bloody shoot me.

Former prime minister Tony Blair has won a one million dollar (£697,000) international prize for his “exceptional leadership”, it has been announced.

What the fuck is wrong with these people? I mean, this is up there with Henry Kissinger winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Have these people not seen the mountains of corpses? The limbless children? The weeping mothers? The vengeful fathers? Butchers taking animals to the abattoir show more consideration and care. If we slaughtered our livestock like we slaughter brown people, Britain would go vegetarian overnight.

If Blair is an example of ‘exceptional leadership’, then only a supremely damaged mind could show us what ‘unexceptional leadership’ would look like. You’d need a Breugel to visualise it. Look where Blair’s supremely damaged mind took us. Thank Christ he wasn’t a lesser leader, eh?

Exceptional leadership. One million dollars. What will he spend it on, one wonders.

What I twittered today…

• 18:13 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/bgtg22 #
• 18:32 Is that Drek Draper or Johnny Vegas? twitpic.com/1g7po #
• 18:52 Classy. Tom Watson does autism jokes: tinyurl.com/agregp. Labour were pissed off when it was George Osborne doing it. #
• 10:48 Fresh Yoghurt: Political diversity tinyurl.com/cx295g #
• 10:58 Anybody want a dog-do update? #
• 11:04 Your groove for today… tinyurl.com/am4caz #
• 11:09 I think I feel a Stephen Fry backlash coming on. #
• 11:13 Another New Labour luvvie jumps ship… tinyurl.com/b73vtr #
• 12:01 Brooker on crisps: ‘They taste precisely like a tiny cat piping hot farts through a pot-pourri pouch into your mouth.’ bit.ly/MVF0s #
• 12:44 Fresh Yoghurt: The portrait of David Miliband tinyurl.com/bmj64e #
• 15:14 Fresh Yoghurt: Britain’s police: under-exposed and over-developed tinyurl.com/cdey8s #
• 15:45 Nuclear Reaction: Nuclear News: Nuclear future ‘key for Scotland’ tinyurl.com/d62w5z #
• 15:45 Nuclear Reaction: The Manila Times: Nuclear folly marches on tinyurl.com/bgcool #

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What I twittered today…

• 18:19 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/asjsmy #
• 20:12 I’ve just slowed cooked organic beef with mushrooms in Timothy Taylor’s Landlord. Ooooooooooooh, baby. #
• 11:48 The last two Sundays the dog’s found a johnny is the exact same spot in Hove Park. Who the hell’s having outdoor sex this time of year? #
• 11:49 And how apprehensive should I be about the little sod’s bowel movement tomorrow? #

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What I twittered today…

• 18:13 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/dajt9s #
• 08:47 Dear Sky News, please shove your pisspoor press releases. I’m not interested in doing your publicity for you. That’s Iain Dale’s job. #
• 10:16 Dear Baby Jesus, please make this hangover stop. Love Just x #
• 13:43 And there we have it, ladies and gentlemen. Nick Cohen reaches the end of his political journey: tinyurl.com/dcupk8 #
• 17:01 I think it might be kill or cure time. Beer… #
• 17:43 Oh God, that’s better. Should have cracked a cold one hours ago. #
• 17:56 Surely there must be more than one ‘Derek Draper’ out there? One man can’t be that bored/sad enough to visit *all* those blogs and comments? #

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What I twittered today…

• 18:43 Fresh Yoghurt: Railing under a flag of convenience tinyurl.com/ajosmd #
• 05:12 Fresh Yoghurt: Twittering tinyurl.com/abx7zu #
• 09:09 Fresh Yoghurt: They should have mailed them to the Marx Brothers tinyurl.com/bhu3zt #
• 09:09 Fresh Yoghurt: Links and stuff from between February 11th and February 13th tinyurl.com/b6dq4g #
• 16:16 Nuclear Reaction: Nuclear News: Britain should prepare for massive loss of landmass, warn engin.. tinyurl.com/che8cd #
• 16:16 Nuclear Reaction: US government says no to nuclear loan guarantees tinyurl.com/c6r3ry #

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What I twittered today…

• 10:21 Does Drek Draper talk about anything other than him-bloody-self? #
• 10:21 And that wasn’t a mis-type. #
• 12:15 Fresh Yoghurt: David Blunkett rides to the rescue tinyurl.com/bwazxd #
• 12:29 Groove of the day: tinyurl.com/cbrr9u #
• 12:42 Aw hell, www.acerbia.com/ has gone. #
• 13:25 Someone recommend me a decent recent album. #
• 14:39 Fresh Yoghurt: Brighton Family to be Deported to Algeria tinyurl.com/d5e9kn #
• 16:38 Who the chuff is Clay Shirky? www.charliebeckett.org/?p=1080 #
• 17:07 Ah, beer o’clock. Ta ta, y’all. #
• 17:18 Nuclear Reaction: Nuclear News: German State Calls for Extension of Nuclear Power tinyurl.com/dfuffs #
• 17:18 Nuclear Reaction: Meet AQ Khan tinyurl.com/bse68h #
• 18:43 Fresh Yoghurt: Railing under a flag of convenience tinyurl.com/ajosmd #

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Another year another message of queer-bashing hyperbole from the Pope. He doesn’t half pick his moments, this being the season of goodwill and all.

Pope Benedict XVI has said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

Last year homosexuals were ‘an objective obstacle on the road to peace’. This year men and women being nice to each other in ways an octogenarian celibate neither understands or approves of is on a par with ecological disaster.

If a blogger starting spouting this hysterical guff they’d be laughed out of town. It’s the same addled mindset that compares New Labour to the Nazis or Zanu-PF. But no, put it in a long red and white dress and have it come of the mouth of someone who’s known the pleasure of neither woman nor man, and suddenly equating gay people with terrorists and global warming is the height of theological rhetoric.

What is it with Ben 16 and the gays anyway? He’s like a Catholic Richard Littlejohn. On and on and on and on and on and on and bloody on. Is such an obsession with homosexuality healthy, I ask myself. You look at the state of the world and you really have to wonder.

Good grief. One is a war-mongering totalitarian widely feared and hated, has enormous powers, and who uses dark methods to get what he wants. The other is Darth Vader. Dick Cheney reflects on eight years of super-villainy…

He referred to a comment from Hillary Clinton likening him to the Star Wars character Darth Vader. “I asked my wife about that, if that didn’t bother her. She said, no, it humanises you.”

It speaks volumes about the state of Dick Cheney’s reputation (and possibly his marriage) that only by comparing him to one of popular fiction’s totems of evil do we see his human side. I mean of course he comes out well compared to Darth Vader. It’s when Cheney’s compared to people who don’t stomp around the place, dressed in black strangling people, blowing up planets, and maiming their kids, that he comes off badly.

(The rest of the interview probably isn’t worth the bother. It’s the usual. Bush Administration has ‘done pretty well’. Torture bad. Waterboarding and Guantanamo good.)

A shonky pizza laid me out over the weekend so here’s some of what I missed.

Mike Power’s doing his weekend paper round again – here’s Saturday and Sunday.

Marina Hyde was majestic in the Guardian on Saturday.

Unity demolishes the case for using ‘lie detectors’ in the welfare system. Great stuff.

Mark Steel on New Labour ongoing welfare ‘reform’:

You can tell what they’ve got in mind when they begin an article, as the Work and Pensions Secretary did yesterday, by insisting they have to make tough decisions. It means they’re tough enough to cut benefits for the weakest people in the country, because they’re hard. It’s like if Ricky Hatton did an interview at the start of a fight, saying “I’m going to show the world tonight just how tough I am”, then walked into the audience and smashed an old woman in the mouth.

But let’s just see if I’ve got this straight. Under one law, single parents with children as young as one year old are to be forced to look for work. Under another law, once those single parents are in work, they’re going to be allowed to ask their bosses for time off to look after those one year-olds.

And that law only allows employees to request flexible working, not expect it. Who knew there was a bar to someone walking into their boss’s office and asking for flexible working conditions? You live and learn.

Here’s a good one. Professor Christopher Greenwood QC was the lawyer who advised the then Attorney General that an unprovoked attack on Iraq was perfectly legal. He was also the lawyer that represented our government and its universal values when it strained itself to prevent three men who had been wrongly arrested and then tortured in Saudi Arabia from seeking justice.

So, how best to reward Professor Greenwood for his loyal service to the country and international law? I know, let’s appoint him to the United Nation’s International Court of Justice. That would be appropriate, no?

Are sociopaths over-represented amongst our elected representatives, do you think? Or do the numbers of the coldly misanthropic in their ranks reflect the numbers that walk amongst us mere proles? It’s a worrying thought either way.

I’m fascinated by political attempts at ‘I feel your pain’. Look at Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s reaction to the Law Lords’ ruling that the Chagos Islanders are to be finally denied hope of going home…

It is appropriate on this day that I should repeat the government’s regret at the way the resettlement of the Chagossians was carried out.

What does that actually mean? Can such an entity as a government ‘regret’? Or do they have someone doing the regretting for them? Who in the Foreign Office is the designated regretter?

I suppose it all depends what you mean by ‘regret’. I imagine the way the Foreign Secretary defines it differs somewhat from the way you or I do. It’s the same when Gordon Brown says he ‘mourns’ British soldiers dying in the desert. Do you really ‘mourn’, Gordon? Do you actually ‘regret’, David? I’ll bet that your truly honest response behind your closed office door to the Law Lord’s decision was a huge sigh of relief.

We all have a complicity in this deception, this debasement, if we’re honest. We demand emotional intelligence, however fake. We live in emotionally incontinent times, if not exactly emotionally honest times. ‘How are you today?’ is the bedrock of small talk although most of us usually express no more dissatisfaction with life than ‘oh, not so bad’. Imagine the look on your questioner’s face if you told him or her how you were really feeling.

So, I suppose, Brown and Miliband’s expressions of grief and regret are an extension of that cultural tic of small talk. It’s actually very British. They have to fill the space, the embarrassing silence. We want them to and demand it of them. Say anything, even if you don’t and couldn’t possibly mean it. They take it a little further than an ‘oh, not so bad’ but not much more.

These utterances don’t stand up to the slightest scrutiny (not least when you see what else this government gets up to – is the treatment of asylum seekers at Yarl’s Wood, for example, a matter for ‘regret’). And, really, they don’t have to in an age of short attention where easy, cheap gestures dress as altruism. You have to consider who these expressions of sadness are designed to comfort. Do sociopaths long for comfort?